## A New Approach to the Local Langlands Correspondence for $GL_n$ Over p-Adic Fields

Peter Scholze
University of Bonn
November 17, 2010

## Honest Doubt

Paul Hodgson
Institute for Advanced Study
November 17, 2010

Artist Paul Hodgson was a Director's Visitor at the Institute in 2010. In a Friends Forum, he discussed the "difficulties in making a judgement and dubtfulness in choosing one thing over another," that underlie his current practice and emerge "both in the way that I fabricate the work, and the images that I choose to present."

## Fractional Perfect Matchings in Hypergraphs

Andrzej Rucinski
Adam Mickiewicz University in Polznan, Poland; Emory University
November 15, 2010

A perfect matching in a k-uniform hypergraph H = (V, E) on n vertices
is a set of n/k disjoint edges of H, while a fractional perfect matching
in H is a function w : E → [0, 1] such that for each v ∈ V we have
e∋v w(e) = 1. Given n ≥ 3 and 3 ≤ k ≤ n, let m be the smallest
integer such that whenever the minimum vertex degree in H satisfies
δ(H) ≥ m then H contains a perfect matching, and let m∗ be defined
analogously with respect to fractional perfect matchings. Clearly, m∗ ≤
m.

## Configuration Spaces of Hard Discs in a Box

Matthew Kahle
Institute for Advanced Study
November 15, 2010

The "hard discs" model of matter has been studied intensely in statistical mechanics and theoretical chemistry for decades. From computer simulations it appears that there is a solid--liquid phase transition once the relative area of the discs is about 0.71, but little seems known mathematically. Indeed, Gian-Carlo Rota suggested that if we knew the total measure of the underlying configuration space, "we would know, for example, why water boils at 100 degrees on the basis of purely atomic calculations."

## Historical Studies and Social Science: An Illustrated History

George Dyson
November 12, 2010

This lecture was part of the Institute for Advanced Study’s celebration of its eightieth anniversary, and took place during the events related to the Schools of Historical Studies and Social Science.